The desire to bomb Arab countries is so strong among some Republican voters that the countries being bombed needn’t actually exist in the real world, according to new polling data.
Released on Friday, Public Policy Polling’s latest national survey reveals that 30 percent of likely Republican primary voters support the bombing of Agrabah, a mystical, fictitious kingdom renowned for its sumptuous bazaars, loquacious parrots and magical flying carpets.
30% of GOP voters support bombing Agrabah, the FICTIONAL COUNTRY that’s in Aladdin: https://t.co/2VXZtyMW5n #WTF pic.twitter.com/Zv3TnEhdlM
— Miki Pope (@MikiTakesPhotos) December 18, 2015
While it faces no imminent threat of destruction—enduring only in the hearts of hipsters and children under 9 who’ve probably never studied an atlas—a lowly 13 percent of Republicans said they would oppose the bombing Agrabah, the central location of the popular 1992 Disney film, Aladdin.
Perhaps fraught with uncertainty over whether airstrikes would even be effective against a foreign kingdom that counts among its citizenry a hysterical magic genie, the remaining 57 percent of Republican respondents answered that they were “not sure” about bombing the country with the Arab-ish sounding name.
Home to a culture known for its spontaneous, yet suspiciously well-choreographed musical numbers, Agrabah has long piqued the curiosity of geneticists eager to solve the mystery of why the country’s males are all born without nipples.
Agrabah’s leader—a rotund man known only as “The Sultan”—won the support of many likewise make-believe human rights activists some years ago, after striking down an arranged marriage law in favor of allowing his only daughter to marry a penniless con artist.
The questionnaire also asked voters to choose from three top Republican presidential nominees: 42 percent responded that they’d vote for Donald Trump, while 22 percent said Sens. Marco Rubio (R-Fla.) and 26 percent said Ted Cruz (R-Texas). Given the option of only choosing between Cruz and Rubio, 48 percent said they’d pick Cruz, while 34 percent backed Rubio, and 19 percent said they weren’t sure.
The Democratic-leaning Public Policy Polling is notorious for its quirky polls. Last month, the firm released figures to show 38 percent of Republicans disapproved of President Barack Obama‘s decision to pardon two turkeys (as opposed to the traditional one) during Thanksgiving 2014. In 2013, they revealed that 27 percent of Americans are in favor of a new tax on hipsters because, well, they’re “so annoying.”
In a tweet that may put this all in perspective:
If you replace phrase “Americans think” with “Americans with landlines who answer unsolicited calls think” it all makes so much more sense.
— oolah (@oolah) November 2, 2014
Screenshot via ‘Aladdin’/Disney
